In celebration of International Cheetah Day, I attended an interesting session with John Muir Laws and the Cheetah Conservation Fund.
Acinonyx jubatus
Tag: mammals
paint it black
Sketching black things with John Muir Laws, learning to see tones and colours within the darks.
Lynx rufus
We bought some new skulls for the Visitor Center (legally and ethically obtained).
Neogale frenata
Click to enbiggen.
Thomomys bottae
I’m not a big fan of gophers, given the subterranean damage they wreak, but I’ve learned to live with them, and even save their lives on occasion.
Thomomys bottae
Yesterday morning in the Park, some people found a newborn gopher in the middle of a wide, well-traveled trail and didn’t know what to do with it. The blind, hairless little thing was shorter than an adult thumb. It was way too young to try to rehabilitate, so we advised them to return it close to where it was found, just in case the mama came back for it.
I’ve had the same thing happen myself, with a newborn rabbit. In both cases the mystery was how the baby got to the middle of a bare trail. Was it dropped by a bird of prey? Carried there by its mother?
red rock canyon
Bodie is a herding dog, not a hunting dog. So it was very surprising when she sniffed in the grass beside the trail, then suddenly lunged and caught a rodent of some kind. It was bigger than a mouse, but smaller than a gopher, and its tail was shorter than a rat’s but not gopher-like. She ignored my commands to drop it, and crunched for a minute before swallowing it. Ugh! Sorry, little critter!
Vulpes vulpes
I just read Fox and I, An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven, and found it unusual, fascinating and beautiful. Recommend.
Canis latrans
#1 question asked at the Visitor Center (usually preceded by “WHOA!”): “Is it real?”
#2 and #3 questions: “How do you get to the M*A*S*H site / Rock Pool?”
Occasionally I don’t know the answer to a question, which sends me off to do research. Right now I’m learning about trapdoor spiders because of a visitor query. More on that to come …
horse anatomy
I was not one of those kids who could draw horses. Ilona Pochwyt in Grade 2, on the other hand, drew them obsessively. It was while watching her effortlessly sketch a ‘colt’ (I had never even heard the word before, they were all horsies to me) that I decided that drawing was a talent, and I definitely didn’t have it. I wonder if my life’s trajectory would have been different if, instead of shutting down the artist within at age 7, I’d asked Ilona to teach me how to draw a horse.
Fast forward several decades and I finally understood that drawing is a skill, not a talent. But I still, until today, had never drawn a horse. My thanks go to John Muir Laws for the equine anatomy lesson, and to Danny Gregory for the prompt. A hurdle has been leapt, a monster vanquished. I see many more sketched horses in my future.
hashiworks 